A customer sale can begin as a sales order or a sales quote. Both represent offers to sell the customer certain items at a certain price at a certain time. The sales order also represents a commitment from the customer to purchase the items, but a sales quote does not. Consequently, sales quotes are not considered by MRP.

A hard-copy document of the order can be printed and sent to the customer.

After a sales order has been entered and is ready to be shipped, a picklist can be printed. When the picklist is generated, any allocated quantities on the order are incremented as picked. The picklist document can be placed inside the shipping box as a packing list. Inventory is not decremented until items are actually shipped.

The shipment transaction creates a pending invoice that does not increment Sales until the invoice is posted to Accounts Receivable. Posting the invoice assigns the invoice number based on financial setup and generates the documents that can be printed and sent to the customer.

Once invoices are posted, financial processing continues with accounts receivable functions.